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Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit."

A business entity is not necessarily separate from the owner and the creditors can hold the owner liable for debts the business has acquired. The taxation system for businesses is different from that of the corporates. A business structure does not allow for corporate tax rates. The proprietor is personally taxed on all income from the business.

A distinction is made in law and public offices between the term business and a company such as a corporation or cooperative. Colloquially, the terms are used interchangeably. (Full article...)

Economics (/ˌɛkəˈnɒmɪks, ˌiːkə-/) is a social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyses what's viewed as basic elements in the economy, including individual agents and markets, their interactions, and the outcomes of interactions. Individual agents may include, for example, households, firms, buyers, and sellers. Macroeconomics analyses the economy as a system where production, distribution, consumption, savings, and investment expenditure interact, and factors affecting it: factors of production, such as labour, capital, land, and enterprise, inflation, economic growth, and public policies that have impact on these elements. (Full article...)

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Microsoft Corporation, or often just MS, is an American multinational computer technology corporation with 79,000 employees in 102 countries and global annual revenue of US $51.12 billion as of 2007. It develops, manufactures, licenses and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices. Headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA, its best selling products are the Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software. These products have prominent positions in the desktop computer market, with market share estimates as high as 90% or more as of 2003 for Microsoft Office and 2006 for Microsoft Windows, in line with Bill Gates's vision "to get a workstation running our software onto every desk and eventually in every home".

Founded to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800, Microsoft rose to dominate the home computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s. The company released an initial public offering (IPO) in the stock market, which, due to the ensuing rise of the stock price, has made four billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees. Throughout its history the company has been the target of criticism for various reasons, including monopolistic business practices—both the U.S. Justice Department and the European Commission, among others, brought Microsoft to court for antitrust violations and software bundling.

Microsoft has footholds in other markets besides operating systems and office suites, with assets such as the MSNBC cable television network, the MSN Internet portal, and the Microsoft Encarta multimedia encyclopedia. The company also markets both computer hardware products such as the Microsoft mouse and home entertainment products such as the Xbox, Xbox 360, Zune and MSN TV. Known for what is generally described as a developer-centric business culture, Microsoft has historically given customer support over Usenet newsgroups and the World Wide Web, and awards Microsoft MVP status to volunteers who are deemed helpful in assisting the company's customers.

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Photo credit: Genghiskhanviet

A farm is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes or an area of water that is devoted primarily to aquacultural processes, in order to produce and manage such commodities as fibres, grains, livestock, or fuel. It is the basic production facility in food production. Farms may be owned and operated by a single individual, family, community, corporation or a company. A farm can be a holding of any size from a fraction of a hectare to several thousand hectares.

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Reykjavík

The economy of Iceland is small and subject to high volatility. In 2011, gross domestic product was US$12 billion, but by 2018 it had increased to a nominal GDP of US$27 billion. With a population of 387,000, this is $55,000 per capita, based on purchasing power parity (PPP) estimates. The 2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis produced a decline in GDP and employment that has since been reversed entirely by a recovery aided by a tourism boom starting in 2010. Tourism accounted for more than 10% of Iceland's GDP in 2017. After a period of robust growth, Iceland's economy is slowing down according to an economic outlook for the years 2018–2020 published by Arion Research in April 2018.

Iceland has a mixed economy with high levels of free trade and government intervention. However, government consumption is less than other Nordic countries. Hydro-power is the primary source of home and industrial electrical supply in Iceland. (Full article...)

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"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas."

—John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, 1936

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Business: Accountancy · Actuarial science · Administration · Business continuity planning · Business development · Business ethics · Business intelligence · Business model · Business process · Businesspeople · Commerce · Commercial law · Companies · Companies law · Control · Consumer behaviour · Corporate crime · Corporate social responsibility · Electronic commerce · Entrepreneurship · Family business · Fictional companies · Finance · Globalization · Industry · Information technology management · Insurance · Internal communications · International business · International trade · Logistics · Management · Market · Marketing · Market Research · Mergers and acquisitions · Operations management · Operations research · Organizational studies · Procurement · Project management · Public relations · Quality management · Retailing · Risk management · Sales · Supply Chain Management

Lists: Accounting · Business · Business law · Business management · Business theorists · Economics · Economists · Finance · Important publications · Industrial organization · Information technology management · International trade · Management · Marketing · Production · Project management · Think tanks

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Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

... that Harvard Business School professor Lauren Cohen is a powerlifting champion?
... that the University of Maryland's Iribe Center was partly funded by a businessman who dropped out of the university?
... that Malaysian businessman Lim Kok Wing was depicted as "King of Africa"?
... that the economy of Reineh, now in northern Israel, was so strong in the Mamluk era that they could afford imported pottery from Syria and Italy?
... that the deity in Nakodaji is considered as a business partner by businessmen?
... that in 2007, Jeremiah Moss started Jeremiah's Vanishing New York, a blog that functions as a "digital obituary column" for old New York City small businesses lost to gentrification?

On this day in business history

May 30:

1994 - Marcel Bich, an Italian-French businessman, co-founder of Société Bic, died on this day.

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General images

The following are images from various business-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Time required to start a business in 2017 (from Business)
Image 2"Jack and the Giant Joint-Stock", a cartoon in Town Talk (1858) satirizing the 'monster' joint-stock economy that came into being after the Joint Stock Companies Act 1844 (from Corporation)
Image 3Offices in the Los Angeles Downtown Financial District (from Business)
Image 4In 2012, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues Melanne Verveer greets participants in an African Women's Entrepreneurship Program at the State Department in Washington, D.C. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 5Plaque in London commemorating Jewish entrepreneur Sir Jack Cohen who in 1919 founded Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in the UK. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 6Chart of the South Sea Company's stock prices. The rapid inflation of the stock value in the 1710s led to the Bubble Act 1720, which restricted the establishment of companies without a royal charter. (from Corporation)
Image 7Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network event in New York City (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 81/8 share of the Stora Kopparberg mine, dated June 16, 1288 (from Corporation)
Image 9Mexican Stock Exchange in Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City (from Business)
Image 10Student organizers from the Green Club at Newcomb College Institute formed a social entrepreneurship organization in 2010. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 11McDonald's Corporation is one of the most recognizable corporations in the world. (from Corporation)
Image 12Emil Jellinek-Mercedes (1853–1918), here at the steering wheel of his Phoenix Double-Phaeton (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 13Lindley LJ was the leading expert on partnerships and company law in the Salomon v. Salomon & Co. case. The landmark case confirmed the distinct corporate identity of the company. (from Corporation)

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More did you know

...that former Harvard University president Lawrence Summers served as the World Bank Chief Economist from 1991 to 1993?

...that André Meyer quit school at age 16 to work as a messenger boy, and was later described as "the most creative financial genius of our time in the investment banking world" by David Rockefeller?

...that Valrhona, a company based in the small town of Tain l'Hermitage in the Rhône Valley in France, is one of the world's leading manufacturers of high-quality chocolate?

...that it is estimated that more than 85 percent of all business information exists as unstructured data, commonly appearing in e-mails, memos, reports, letters, presentations and Web pages?

... that the Automotive Electronics Council is an organisation based in the USA that sets qualification standards for the supply of components in the automotive electronics industry.

... that Hollywood accounting is the practice of distributing the profit earned by a large project to corporate entities which, though distinct from the one responsible for the project itself, are typically owned by the same people, with the net result of reducing the project's profit by a substantial margin, sometimes even eliminating it altogether.